


HigherEducationStuck!

by fwafwadragonette



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, not romance focused
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-15 11:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5783923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fwafwadragonette/pseuds/fwafwadragonette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a repost of a work I have on fanfiction.net. I prefer AO3, so I'm posting it here now.</p>
<p>Description:<br/>This is a CollegeStuck story, where all of our favorite trolls and humans are off to college! (AKA: Pre-scratch trolls, Post-scratch trolls, Beta kids, & Alpha kids) Alternating 2nd person POV & shipping likely to happen later. Rated T for swearing, minor adult themes (no lemons/nsfw content), and possibly minor violence. Enjoy! uwu</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Move-in Day (Aradia)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I don't own homestuck! =3

A troll girl with tangled black hair and large, ram-like horns steps off the bus with her suitcase and backpack, taking in the modern design of the dormitory she was assigned to. She walks up to the building and steps inside, filing into the registration line that is designated with her last initial.

==> Be troll girl

Your name is ARADIA MEGIDO and you are very excited to move in to your College Dormitory. You take in all of the sights and smells, like the fresh paint on the walls and the crisp papers pinned to the notice board. Smiling, you make you way to the front of the line and sign in, smiling at the human woman that hands you your keys and directs you where to go.

The woman told you that your room was at the end of the south hall on the second floor, and her directions are easily followed. You find the door unlocked, and assume that your roommate has already arrived. That assumption is evidently correct when you walk into the room, as a suitcase lays on one of the beds, its contents scattered on the mattress, and a troll girl with red glasses and spiky horns sits amongst the scattered objects, licking a piece of chalk. Her head perks up as the door opens and you step in, she smiles and says, “You’re my roommate?”

You pause momentarily in the doorway, “Yes.”

“Weeell, I already chose this bed, so you can have the other.”

“Okay,” you step into the room and hear the door click shut.

You set your bags down on the bed under the window, enjoying the view of the grounds that it has as you pull out a pair of rust-colored sheets. You turn to your roommate and ask, “Why didn’t you take the window bed? The view’s so pretty.”

She cackles and waves a hand in front of her eyes, “I’m blind, so I don’t see much point in having a view.”

“O-oh, I apologize for not realizing.”

She brushes off your apology and asks you for your name. You tell her as you stretch the sheets over the mattress and ask her for hers, it turns out to be Terezi.

After you have both finished unpacking and setting the room to rights, Terezi mentions that the bathroom is shared with the room next door, so you two are in a suite. You have already learned how Terezi knows where everything is, as she has gone around licking a lot of surfaces and sniffing deeply, so you don’t question how she knows this and just walk over to the adjoining room’s door, knocking on it lightly.

A human girl with long black hair, buck teeth, and large round glasses opened the door. She smiles at you and holds out her hand, greeting you, “Hi! I’m Jade Harley, I guess you guys are our sweet mates!”

You shake her hand and smile politely in return, introducing yourself and Terezi, who is now standing behind you licking a piece of green chalk. Jane invites the both of you into her room and closes the door once all of you are inside.

The first thing you notice in Jade’s room is the multitude of plants. There is a shelving set at the end of one bed that contains nothing but potted plants of various colors and sizes. The second thing you notice is a troll girl with short hair and a red skirt sitting on the bed further away from the collection of flora. She looks up from what appears to be a fashion magazine as you walk in, glancing at the both of you quickly before standing. She walks over to you and says, “I am Kanaya, and you two appear to be our suite-mates.”

Terezi steps up, sniffing around Kanaya, “That’s right,” she states, “You’re a jade blood, aren’t you?”

“Yes, indeed. Could you tell from my lipstick?” Kanaya was indeed wearing jade lipstick and the symbol on her shirt was jade.

Terezi cackled, “I’m blind, so no, I could just smell it on you.”

“Oh, I apologize if I caused any-.”

Jade cut off the apology her roommate was trying to utter and asked curiously, “You can smell that well?”

“Yeah,” Terezi shrugged as Jade’s eyes widened.

Sensing that the conversation was likely to get sidetracked by Terezi’s smelling abilities, you pipe up, “I’m Aradia, and this is Terezi. It’s nice to meet you both.”

Jade claps her hands together, “Yes! I’m sure we’ll all be great friends!”

With that, Kanaya asks if you, Terezi, and Jade want to go look around the grounds with her. Jade seems happy for the opportunity and Terezi seems interested enough, so you decide to tag along with them. You go and grab a book to read outside from your room, and Terezi grabs a white cane from your room, the handle of which is a red dragon head.

Once you all get outside you are surprised to find that the sun is beginning to set, you hadn’t realized that it had taken so long to set up your room and get acquainted with Terezi, Kanaya, and Jade. The sunset doesn’t seem surprise anyone else, so you don’t mention it to your companions. Jade is leading the way, and she seems to see someone she knows. “John!” she yells out as she races towards a human boy and a troll with 2 sets of horns.

The boy turns and yells Jade’s name, he hugs her and for a second you think that they might be a couple. However, this guess is quickly put to rest when you see them both side by side and you see their equally messy black hair, tan skin tone, and buck teeth. You aren’t surprised when Jade tells you that John is her twin, but you are curious about the troll boy that is loitering behind them. He wears pretty normal clothing, but you note the blue and red glasses covering his eyes. He catches you looking at him and holds your gaze for a moment. You blush and look away, embarrassed to be caught staring.

John finally notices that the troll hasn’t spoken up and says, “Oh! This is my roommate, Sollux! Sollux, why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“I mean I’m pretty thure that you jutht did,” Sollux has a heavy lisp that made understanding him a bit difficult, but it seems to be easy enough to get the gist of what he says.

John laughed and clapped Sollux on the back, proposing that you all order pizza with a couple of other students you met earlier.

You all agree and everyone heads over to the dormitory that all of you live in.


	2. Con Air (John)

==> Be John

You laugh at something Terezi just said as your group enters the dorm building. There are a bunch of upperclassmen on one side of the commons area, so you guys claim the other side. You ask Jade to order pizza while you go grab a movie from your room, telling her that you’ll eat whatever.

You run into a short troll boy as you climb up the stairs, and he falls backwards onto the step behind him. He glares at you and shouts, “WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK!? WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING. GEEZ!”

You help him up and say, “Sorry man, I was just going to get something from my room.”

“Whatever asshole,” he growls as he straightens his baggy black sweater.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Karkat.”

“Nice to meet you Karkat! I’m John!” you hold out your hand for him to shake, and when he grabs it he digs his nails into your hand. You try to ignore it and ask him if he wants to grab pizza with you guys, he grudgingly agrees, and follows along behind you until you reach your room.

When you reach your room and go inside you notice that Karkat is standing just outside the door, as if he is nervous to come into your room. You tell him that he can come in and he reluctantly follows, standing to the side as you toss movies out of their cardboard box onto the floor. Karkat seems curious about the movies and picks up a random romcom you have, reading the summary on the back.

“Can I borrow this?” he asks quietly from where he’s standing.

You glance over him at look at the movie in his hands, it’s an older film that you watched once and weren’t very interested in. You shrug at Karkat and answer, “You can have it. I doubt I’m going to watch it again.”

Karkat grips the movie to his chest and thanks you as you pull out the movie you were looking for, smiling at your copy of the best movie ever, Con Air. You turn to leave, but as you do your hear a knock on the bathroom door that connects your room to the one over.

Your guest jumps at the noise, but you calmly walk over to the door and open it. Standing on the other side is a troll with messy hair and white face paint that looks stoned out of his mind. You stare at him for a moment before he says, “Heeeey, I guess you two are my motherfucking suitemates.”

You glance over at Karkat and say to the troll, “Uh, no,” he looks confused, “I mean, I am, but Karkat over there was just hanging out with me while I grabbed this movie,” you hold up the movie in your hand and the tall boy in front of you just stared at it, completely dazed.

“Gamzee, get the fuck out of my way,” you hear from behind the troll, whose name you assume is Gamzee. A human boy just over average height – though the top of his head comes up to only Gamzee’s shoulder – and white-blonde hair shoves his way into the room. He wears faded black jeans, a baseball shirt with red sleeves, and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

“Um, hi,” you say to the boy as he brushes a strand of hair out of his face, “I’m John.”

“Dave,” he replies as he glances over at Karkat and asks, “Who’re you?”

Karkat shakes his head and snaps out of the state of shock he had previously been in. “Karkat,” he growls as he folds his arms over the movie he was holding.

“Cool. I assume you guys heard me when I called him Gamzee?” he gestured to the troll taking up the doorway.

You both nod and you ask Dave and Gamzee if they want to have pizza with the rest of you. Dave shrugs and says sure, and Gamzee just follows you guys down the stairs. 

 

You find the group downstairs waiting for you to bring the movie, chatting about classes and majors. As you near them, they look up and see the 3 others behind you, or, as in Terezi’s case, smell the 3 others. You introduce the three newcomers, and then you introduce everyone else to them. Karkat curls up on a corner of the couch in front of the TV, still holding the movie you gave him, and Dave plops down on the other end of the same couch and stretches out, while Gamzee sits cross-legged on the floor in front of them.

After putting in the movie, you sit down in between Karkat and Dave and ask Jade when the pizza’s getting here. She says that it should come in about 15 minutes after checking her watch, and you nod before pressing play on the movie, ready to enjoy the best movie of all time.

You’re so engrossed in the movie, that when Jade comes back with the pizza and hands you a plate you don’t even notice. It takes Karkat poking you with one of his razor-sharp nails to snap you out of your stupor and get you to notice the two slices of garbage pizza on your lap. You pick up a slice and start eating it mechanically, hearing someone nearby snicker. Looking around, you notice that it’s Terezi.

She is sitting on the arm of the couch by Karkat, who is describing all the actions of the characters on screen to her, as Kanaya informed her that it would be rude to lick the television set. Terezi cackles louder this time as Karkat says to her, “And now the fucking human bulge sucker is doing even more stupid shit.”

Ignoring their obvious misinterpretations of this awesome film, you continue watching until it’s over, and you then state, “And that, everyone, is the best movie ever created!”

Dave snorts and Karkat groans as you clap at the screen, stopping for a moment to wipe a stray tear from your eye. Jade giggles at how silly you’re being, as she always does when you watch Con Air, and Sollux sighs, continuing to play whatever game he’d opened on his phone halfway through the movie.


	3. The Mall (Sollux)

==> Be Sollux

It has been about a week since your roommate and all your new friends watched that god awful movie, and since then John has dragged you to 2 mixers, an orientation to college life, and is currently yelling for you to get out of the bathroom already so that you guys can meet his sister at the mall. You bang your head on the wall one more time before flinging open the door, nearly making John fall in the process. “Ready?” he asks as he straightens his hair.

“Thure, I gueth,” you answer as you swing your bag over your shoulder.

John grabs your wrist and runs out into the hallway, turning left, towards the room adjoined with yours. He pounds on the door and Dave opens it, looking just slightly surprised until he notices who’s standing in front of him. “What do you want, John?” he says as he straightens his shirt.

John grins at the tall human in front of him, “Come on, Dave, I know I told you we were going to the mall today.”

“Yeah, so.”

You roll your eyes, “Tho, John meant to altho imply that he wanted you to come with uth.”

“Fine.”

Dave steps out of the door and follows you two down the stairs to the first floor. You and he begin to head towards the front door, but John goes the opposite direction, towards Karkat’s room.

By the time you both reach John, Karkat is standing in the door wearing flannel pajama pants and a baggy T-shirt. He’s shouting at John about waking him up at 10 o’clock on a Saturday, but stops when he sees you and Dave. You could almost swear that he’s blushing as he says, “Oh, great, more of the asshole brigade.”

“Yep!” John says, “Come on, Karkat! A bunch of us are going.”

“I can’t. I told my stupid roommate we would do some ‘bonding’ bullshit.”

“Bring him with!”

“Fine,” he groans and lets you guys into his room.

One of the beds has purple sheets and is very neatly made, and the other is a mess of grey and black blankets and crumpled energy drink cans. Karkat says to make yourselves comfortable and goes over to the bathroom door and bangs on it, yelling, “ERIDAN I NEED TO USE THE SHOWER!”

After about 30 seconds the door opens and a troll male wearing nothing but a speedo and smelling strongly of cologne walks out. “Of course, Kar-,” he starts.

“ERIDAN WHAT THE FUCK PUT SOME CLOTHES ON,” Karkat shouts as he covers his eyes.

“’Bonding bullshit?’” Dave says as John falls to the floor, laughing.

“What?” Eridan asks as he walks into the room.

“THE FUCKING SPEEDO THAT’S WHAT.”

“I’m on the swim team! This is the uniform.”

“Whatever,” Karkat says as he shoves past Eridan to get to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

The mostly nude troll in front of you huffs and brushes himself off, as if Karkat touching him could have contaminated him. He turns and smiles at you, John, and Dave, saying, “Well hello, I’m Eridan. And you three are?”

John holds out his hand for Eridan to shake and introduces the three of you. As they shake hands you see Eridan look over John’s shoulder at you, his eyes moving up and down as he checks you out. You stare at him in disgust as he winks at you and finishes shaking John’s hand.

“So,” he begins, “where are you guys taking Kar out to?”

“None of your buthineth,” you snap at him.

Dave raises an eyebrow at your outburst, and John turns to you and says, “Sollux, don’t be rude!”

“Ah, it’s no problem,” Eridan continues, “I have practice anyways,” he grabs a towel and a duffel bag and slings them over his shoulder before walking out of the room. As he passes you, he brushes your hand for a moment, leaving a piece of paper sitting loosely in your palm before he runs the hand through his purple-streaked hair and walks into the hallway.

“Well, that guy was interesting,” Dave says as he walks over to the bathroom.

You nod slowly and look at the piece of paper in your hand, hearing Dave knocking on the door and telling Karkat to hurry up as you unfold it. On the white surface is a phone number written in purple ink, along with a quickly drawn heart. You crumple up the paper and stuff it in your coat pocket, where it mingles with the other trash you always forget to throw out.

Fortunately, no one seemed to notice the paper, as Karkat was now yelling about you guys making him do something when he would rather be asleep. John grabs you by the arm and rushes into the hallway, chattering on and on about some stupid movie that just got put out on DVD that he wants to buy.


	4. Twins (Dave)

==> Be Dave

Since you’re the only one out of the four of you with a car on campus, you’ve become the chauffeur of stupidity, trucking around three whiny dweebs that you are slightly annoyed to admit you think of as friends. You slap Karkat’s hand away from the volume control for what must be millionth time this trip, and he glares at you. You stick your tongue out and turn the music up even higher. It’s an ironically retro tape of some of your bro’s old raps, and you bob your head along to the beat as you turn into the mall parking lot.

While you’re cursing about the lack of parking spaces, Karkat finally manages to turn off the music when you’re not paying attention. You turn to him and raise one eyebrow, but he just mocks you by sticking his tongue out. You roll your eyes beneath your shades and pull into the parking spot to your left.

You get out of the car and wait for everyone to join you before you begin walking to the glass doors of the mall. You are in the back of the parking lot, and Karkat complains about having to walk so far when he just wants to be asleep. You jokingly offer to give him a piggy-back ride, and he turns a bright shade of red before storming off in front of the three of you.

John snickers and says, “I think Karkat has a crush on you, Dave. What do you think, Sollux?”

Sollux looks up from his phone and says, “Do I look like I give a shit?” before looking back down at whatever he was doing.

“I suppose you don’t,” you say absentmindedly. Did Karkat really have a crush on you? He was cute and everything, but you weren’t sure if you were interested in him that way. You decided you’d have to think about this as you all walked into the mall.

Jade sees John almost immediately, and hugs him as the other girls walk over. You recognize the blonde holding Kanaya’s hand almost immediately and curse softly. Sollux and Karkat turn around to look at you, trying to figure out why you’re uttering seemingly random profanities.

They are answered quickly as the blonde human girl says, “I didn’t know your brother was acquainted with mine.”

Jade blinks and replies, “What do you mean, Rose?”

“Dave and I are half-siblings, fraternal twins with different fathers to be precise.”

Jade claps her hands together and throws her hands around both yours and Rose’s shoulders, saying how wonderful it is that you two are siblings.

“Yeah, wonderful,” you spit sarcastically.

Rose rolls her eyes and removes herself from under Jade’s arm, “My brother and I do not always see eye-to-eye. We had a rather large disagreement recently.”

“Whatever,” you say as you thrust your hands into your pockets and walk away from the group.

You end up in one of the side corridors of the mall, and you almost slide down the wall before you notice Karkat lingering behind you.

“What do you want?” you ask as you take off your shades and rub your eyes after turning away from him.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure, whatever, just leave me the fuck alone.”

“Hey, don’t be a fuckass to the person trying to help you.” 

He reaches out to grab your shoulder, but you turn to face him before he can. He looks surprised to see your eyes, but quickly regains his composure. He takes a step back and says, “What happened between you and Rose?”

You sigh and sit down on a nearby bench before starting, “We just don’t really get along, since she lives with our mom and has this high class life and everything, while I live with my other half-brother that adopted me since our dad is dead or whatever. She always tries to do all of this psychology shit to me, and I guess she went too far last time we talked. It’s just really hard to talk to her anymore, y’know?

“Not really, but I guess I can pretend,” he mumbles as he grabs your hand, your fingers intertwining.

You blink in surprise and look at your hands on the bench between you as you say, “You really do have a crush on me, don’t you?”

“Maybe, what of it?”

“Well, maybe I’m starting to have a crush on you too.”

You turn to Karkat and kiss him lightly before standing up and putting your shades back on, removing your hand from his.

With a very red face, he looks at you and says, “We should probably go back to the others. Can you deal with Rose?”

“Yeah.”

You find everyone in a bookstore on the lower level. John is perusing the movie section, and you notice another troll standing behind him, offering advice on different titles when John picks them up. She’s hot, but definitely not your type, standing slightly shorter than John, with long black hair, blue lips, and a metallic arm. She turns around when everyone else notices you, and you see her eyes, or eye, in full light. One of the lenses of her glasses is purely black, hiding what you suppose is an empty eye socket or blind eye. The other eye is what catches you off-guard, since, as far as you can tell, it is a spider eye. The extra pupils contrast with her otherwise gorgeous face, making her look more threatening than cute.

Rose steps towards you and introduces the troll as Vriska Serket, her roommate. You shake hands with Vriska and she grins, showing her intimidating fangs. After the introduction is complete, Rose grabs you by the arm and drags you to the back of the store, meeting little resistance. You know you two will need to sort out your issues with each other, and you may as well do it as soon as possible.

Once you two are hidden within the finance book section, she turns and says, “Can we perhaps act like civil human beings amongst our new friends?”

You shrug and reply, “Yeah, sure. That fight happened a while ago anyways.”

“Indeed. It happened 5 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days ago to be exact.”

“Sounds like a record.”

“For you, it is. I’m sorry, Dave.”

“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s just not bring it up again.”

“Of course.”

After that you two shook hands and walked back to the group. Rose immediately went to Kanaya and whispered something in the other’s ear. Kanaya smiled softly at what she said before showing Rose a book she had found. You stopped watching them when they started flipping through the pages, deciding that you would need to find out what was going on there.


	5. Spider8itch's Skeletons (Vriska)

==> Be Vriska

You’ve been hanging out at the mall with your roommate and a group of losers for hours, and needless to say you’re pretty fucking bored. You think that Rose’s friend John is pretty cool, but he doesn’t know the first thing about good pirate movies, so you’ll definitely have to educate him.

Speaking of John, you’re sitting next to him at a table in the food court. He’s going on and on about some Nicholas Cage movie he loves, and you can feel yourself losing focus on the subject at hand. Seriously, why are the people your roommate hangs out with so weird?

Your roommate is sitting on the other side of John with the gorgeous troll she’s dating. You’re not sure how she got Kanaya to date her, but you suppose Rose is fairly attractive and intelligent for a human. You glance around the table while John describes some elaborate scene with a plane or something, waving his arms around crazily. On the other side of Kanaya is the short and very loud troll, you think his name is Kitkat? Karkit? Oh wait, it’s Karkat. He’s shouting at the yellow blood with the colored glasses next to him, who is ignoring him while tapping away on his phone. The other human girl, Jade, is sitting next to them, teasing Karkat and subsequently riling him up even more.

Their conversation distracts you when the yellow blood, Sollux you think, says the word pirate, but you quickly realize he was just making a snide remark to Karkat about, “Not even being able to pirate a dithney movie,” or something like that. It’s a little hard to hear him with that lisp.

To the right of Jade is Rose’s brother, Dave. You’re not sure what happened between them, nor do you really understand the human concept of “siblings,” but you’re pretty sure it had something to do with their shared female lusus not paying for any of Dave’s tuition. Tuition doesn’t really make sense to you either, since most colleges give trolls free rides due to some deal with the Condesce.

Dave is drinking a frozen drink or some sort and listening to a troll girl with pointy horns that’s between him and another troll. The other troll has ram-like horns and long, tangled hair, and you don’t make any other observations before snapping back to look at the pointy-horned troll. Terezi Pyrope, your former friend and FLARPing partner. Trying to ignore her, you move on to the troll sitting next to you. She is small in stature and is wearing a blue hat that looks like a meow-beast and a long olive trench coat. This troll is half listening to John while typing away into trollian on her phone.

You look over her shoulder to see if she is talking to anyone you know, and read the handle “centaursTesticle.” You scowl and look away, subconsciously touching the metal arm that the troll she’s talking to made for you after you had lost the organic one that belonged there.

It had been over a sweep since you influenced Tavros Nitram to jump off of a cliff, causing him to loose function of his legs. You weren’t sure how you felt about your actions, but Terezi was so mad at you that you had to do something, so you naturally attacked her. This subsequently caused you to lose your arm and an eye, and left Terezi permanently blind, destroying any friendship that you formerly had with her.

You hope that one day you can fix what you did, but you think it might honestly be too late. Shaking your head to regain focus, you smile at John and continue listening to his stories about Nicholas Cage movies.

Just as you begin actually listening to what John says, your concentration is shattered by Terezi as she stands up and yells, “This is totally fun and all, but I think we should all go to this store I know. It’s totally great!”

Pretty much everyone at the table agrees and follows the troll as she stands up and starts walking away. You roll your eyes and get up after John does, figuring that you don’t have much choice but to go unless you want to be completely alone.

The store Terezi is talking about is just across the street from the mall in an old store that doesn’t look like it’s seen upkeep in years. The paint on the outside is peeling, the sidewalk in front is cracked beyond repair, and the windows have sideways blinds covered in cracks and holes. It looks like the establishment itself is some sort of game store, and this catches your eye. You love game stores, with all the different dice and games that you can beat people at.

You all walk into the store, which looks like it was once a bookstore of some sort, with old shelves and an abandoned little café off in one corner. There is a troll boy around your age behind the counter, and he looks surprised to see so many people coming into this old place at one time. You note his large, bull-like horns and the red-tipped fauxhawk on top of his head, along with the very strange wings sprouting from his back. 

After he gets over his surprise, he jumps over the counter with the aid of his wings, which are obviously functional, and lands in front of your group.

“Hey,” he says, “Can I help you guys?”

Terezi steps forward and answers before most of you notice what’s going on, “Yeah, my friend Tavros told me about this place, and I’ve been here a couple times. We’re looking to sign up for the gaming nights.

“You have to be students at the university for that.”

Terezi whips out her ID and shoves it in the boy’s face. He reaches out to grab it, but shies away when he notices that it’s covered in troll saliva. “Uh, okay,” he says in response to her gesture, “Terezi, huh? Uh, my name’s Rufioh.”

He holds out his hand and stands there like that for a bit until Aradia steps forward and says, “She’s blind, so I don’t think she knows you want to shake her hand…”

Terezi interrupts, “Nah, I knew he wanted to shake my hand. I’m just fucking with him.” She begins cackling and walks away, towards a shelf of very colorful dice.

Rufioh looks after Terezi before turning back to your group. “So, I guess I should give you guys the signup sheet.”

You step forward. “Yeah,” you say to him and snatch it from him at he pulls a folded piece of paper and a pen out of his pocket.

The list has various names you don’t recognize until you come across the last signup on the sheet, Tavros Nitram. You scowl and take the cap off of the pen, angrily scrawling your name on the next line.   
After this is finished you shove the list into the hands of Aradia before storming off towards a display of swords in a case next to the counter.

All these memories being dragged up makes you hope that college really is the fresh start humans seem to think it is.

There is a young troll sitting in a wheelchair in front of a window in a small dorm room. He has very large horns and the sides of his head around them have been shaved, leaving a black fauxhawk. His back is facing the door as it opens to reveal a heavily muscled troll with a broken horn.


	6. Old Friends (Tavros)

==> Be troll with large horns

Your name is TAVROS NITRAM, and you hear your roommate walk up behind you before he says, “Lowblood, may I request that you move away from the window. Your wheelchair being in this position interferes with access to my workbench.”

You wheel away from the window and say, “Uh, hey, Equius?” he turns to face you, “I, uh, was wondering if, uh, you might want to, uh-“

“For shucks sake, lowblood, spit it out,” he spits at you after you stutter yet again.

You grab your bag and wheel yourself towards the door, “Uh, never mind.”

Once you’re in the hallway you look in your bag to make sure you have everything you need. You seem to have everything, and begin wheeling yourself towards the door of the residential hall. You and Equius live on the first floor due to your disability, so it doesn’t take long for you to get outside. 

After going outside you head over to a bus station on campus, which will allow you to board the bus to the mall, not that you want to go to the mall, but it’s close enough to your destination for you to head over there. It takes about 10 minutes before a small crowd of students grows around you at the station. You don’t pay much attention to them until you hear a cackling laugh.

You’d know that laugh anywhere. You turn around in your chair and see Terezi Pyrope standing around with some other trolls and a few humans. You also recognize your roommate’s moirail, Nepeta Leijon, who is paying attention to a human boy with blonde hair and sunglasses.

Just as you’re about to call out to Terezi, she sniffs the air and notices you. She walks over and leans on the back of your chair, saying, “Tavros! Are you going to the game store too?”

“Uh, yeah. Did you go, uh, check it out?”

“Yep! Me and my friends are going there now.”

“Then, uh, I guess I’ll let you go hang out with them. I don’t, uh, want to intrude.”

“Don’t be silly, Pupa! You gotta hang out with us!”

You shyly wheel yourself the few feet over to where Terezi’s friends are standing. You count 6 people, not including Terezi, and she introduces you to them. The human with the sunglasses is Dave, and the other human is a girl with long black hair and buck teeth, whose name is Jade. The trolls are Nepeta, a girl with messy hair and ram-like horns named Aradia, a very short troll with nubby horns named Karkat, and a very tall troll with polka-dot pants named Gamzee, who looks like he’s not quite sure where he is.

Pretty soon after the introductions are finished the bus pulls up, and you go to the side-door meant for raising wheelchairs into the bus. You’re expecting to be ignored once you’re on the bus, but Terezi and her friends sit down in the seats around you. You start to try and talk to Terezi, since you don’t really know anyone else, but she’s having an argument with Karkat, and you’d feel bad if you interrupted them.

You feel an awkward silence beginning to set in before Nepeta looks at you closer and says, “Hey! You’re roommates with Equius!”

“Who’s that?” asks Jade.

“My meowrail!”

You look up from where you’d been examining the stitching of the bag on your lap and say, “Yeah. I, um, tried to get him to come with me. But, uh, he didn’t really listen.”

“Let me text him and tell him to drive opurr to the store! He’d have fun playing with us!”

You nod and are surprised when Jade suddenly asks, “What’s a meowrail?”

You start to say, “Uh, Nepeta means moirail,” but Karkat suddenly flies over and looks at Jade intensly.

“Don’t you know ANYTHING about troll romance!?” he shouts at her before going into a very elaborate and thorough explanation of troll quadrants, which seems awfully inappropriate for a public conversation in your opinion

By the time Karkat is finished, most everyone’s face is a bright shade of red or olive or rust or bronze. The only people who seem unaffected are Dave, Terezi, Gamzee (who you think is stoned out of his mind), and Karkat himself. 

About 5 minutes after the rant is finished you all arrive at the mall, and everyone waits for your chair to be lowered from the bus before heading over to the store. You all head over, with Terezi pushing you while chattering about what games you should all play tonight. You almost protest to being pushed, but you realize that Terezi just wants to help you because she blames herself for your disability. You never really blamed her, you weren’t sure if you even blamed Vriska. You were weak, and weak trolls are lucky to survive at all.

The store is busier than you’ve ever seen it before, though that means there are only maybe two dozen people inside. College students are scattered around tables set up in the open section of floor in the middle of the building. Some others have gone into the old café and put the tables within back to rights, and a small group of trolls sits around one, playing a game of cards against humanity.

Rufioh quickly notices your group and steps out from behind the counter, where he had been involved in a conversation with a troll girl that looked very similar to Aradia, but was wearing a skirt much shorter.

You smile at Rufioh when he walks up to your group, and he ruffles your hair. “There’s a fiduspawn tournament about to start over there,” he tells you and points at a table.

“Okay, thanks,” you wheel yourself over to the table and take out your fiduspawn set as Rufioh begins chatting with your group of friends.


	7. Nerds (Nepeta)

==> Be Nepeta

You are so excited to play games here tonight, and are energetically messaging your meowrail to get his big, sweaty butt over here. He is being reluctant, but you can tell that he’s about to give in. You finally decide to call him, and everyone turns to look at you as you speak rapidly into your phone. Once you get on the phone with Equius, he agrees to come over to the store, but says he will not play any of your silly games with you.

It doesn’t bother you that Equius won’t role play with you, you just really want to spend time with him. You guys haven’t been together much since you got to college, and the whole point of going to the same college as him was to be able to hang out more. You suppose there’s nothing you can do about it, and this college does have a pretty good art program, so you’re okay with it whether or not Equius spends more time with you.

While you’re waiting for him to get there, you wander around the shelves and pick out 2 sets of dice. A new one for you, and one for Equius. One is a set of shiny olive dice, and the other is a bright, sparkly blue set. You’ll give the olive ones to Equius, and keep the blue ones for yourself, to remind the both of you of your friendship. 

As you’re checking out, Rufioh asks, “Do you know what to use those for?”

“Do I efur!” You reply cheerfully as you walk away towards the table Terezi is sitting at.

You sit down next to her and pull out a stack of RPG books. They range from an older version of the human Dungeons and Dragons to a beginning FLARPing rulebook. You’d never FLARPed before, but Terezi had encouraged you to get the book just in case you ever played with her. Speaking of Terezi, she was picking up each book and sniffing its cover.

“Smell one you want to play?” you ask her.

She thrusts the Dungeons and Dragons manual in your face and says, “Can I play a dragon in this?”

You giggle and respond, “If you’re the dungeon master you can make us fight dragons. Or you can play a half-dragon.”

“I’ll play a half-dragon. What’s a dungeon master?”

“It’s the person who plays all the enemies and explains the adventfur.”

Terezi starts asking the others at the table if they want to be the dungeon master. None of them seem to really be interested in doing anything other than playing a normal character. You’re about to say that you wouldn’t mind being dungeon master when Equius walks in.

You spring out of your seat and begin stalking him behind the shelves, not noticing the one-eyed troll that came in behind him. Once he looks thoroughly confused about not seeing you from his high vantage point, you pounce over the shelf of assorted versions of Munchkin and land on his shoulders, where you snatch his glasses and hold them above his head.

Equius reaches up and places you on the ground as gently as he can. “Nepeta, what are you doing?”

“Saying hi, of course!” you tell him as you hold a small paper bag out to him.

“What is this?”

“A present!”

“Why thank you,” he says as he reaches out and takes his glasses off your face before reaching the bag.

You watch him, grinning like mad, as he takes the little plastic box of dice out of the bag. You know he’ll probably never use them, but you should always prepared. Besides, you would be so happy if he played a game with you, so you can’t help but hope they’ll be a useful gift.

He tries to handle the box delicately, but ends up creating some cracks in it before he puts them in a pocket of his grey cargo shorts. “Thank you, Nepeta. They are very nice looking dice, though I have no intention to play any of your games with them.”

Just as you’re about to reply and tell him you wanted to get them for him anyways, Vriska steps forward and says, “Of course you’re going to play with us, Equius. Why else would you be here?”

Equius begins to sweat and wipes his face with a towel from his back pocket. “Are you ordering me to play these foolish games with you?”

Vriska grins maliciously, “Sure, if that’s what it takes.”

“I suppose, if you insist, I will play,” his towel is thoroughly covered in sweat, “However, I must first make a short trip to the restroom. I will return shortly.”

Equius quickly heads off towards the restrooms, which are designated by a sign in the back of the store, and Vriska turns to you. “What are we going to play?” she asks you.

“Um, Dungeons and Dragons, but we need a dungeon master.”

“Perfect,” she says before heading over to the table of your friends.

You’re not quite sure what you think of Vriskers, er, Vriska, but Terezi told you about what she did when they used to FLARP together, and you think it was wrong of her. However, she seems better than you expected. She might be a little cold on the outside, but you think she’s sorry for what she did to Tavros.

You follow her over to the table, where she and Tavros are staring at each other like they’ve seen ghosts. You all stand there for what feels like ages before Equius appears and breaks the silence, “So, how do I go about playing this game?”

Vriska quickly looks up and says to Equius, “Well, you have to create a daring, heroic character that can beat anything I throw at you.”

Terezi pitches in, “Wait, you’re going to be our dungeon whatever?”

“Dungeon master, yes,” she flips her hair and sits down at the front of the table before asking, “So how many of you have played this before?”

Surprisingly, you, Tavros, and Jade raise your hands. Dave turns to Jade and raises an eyebrow, questioning how she would know this game. Jade shrugs and says something about John being interested in games like this.

Vriska seems pleased that some of you have played before, and assigns each of you a “noob” so that you can all get characters done faster. Naturally, you’re teaching Equius, but you also have Gamzee to teach, since there were 5 people that needed to learn, and 4 that knew how to play at the start.

You find Gamzee to be quite annoying, as he zones out every time you try explaining the game to him, but Equius seems to get the gist of how to play. You manage to get characters built for all three of you in the next 2 hours, leaving an hour for you guys to actually play tonight.

Everyone seems pretty happy with their characters, with you playing a catfolk rogue, Gamzee playing a half-orc barbarian once he finally paid attention, Tavros playing a human druid, Dave playing a half-elf monk, Aradia playing an elf warlock, Karkat playing a very plain human fighter, Equius playing an Elf Paladin, and Terezi playing a half-dragon monk.

The next hour of gaming is mostly basic combat and early exposition. Apparently you all have to defeat a pirate lord to steal his treasure, which sounds very exciting to you.


	8. Boy Problems (Karkat)

==> Be Karkat

College has gone pretty well for you so far. You’ve made a bunch of pretty cool friends, not that you’d ever tell them they’re your friends, and the first day of classes is Monday. This University is pretty different from most, since there are 2 weeks before classes for students to get to know each other and attend orientations and mixers. In fact, you are about to head out to the last mixer before classes start, and you hope that some of your friends other than Eridan will be there.

Speaking of Eridan, he is the only reason you two haven’t left for the mixer yet. He’s having trouble deciding what to wear in order to “make an impression.” It’s especially hard for him because this mixer is formal, and he seems to have approximately 3 million fancy outfits in his wardrobe. You didn’t have much trouble getting ready, considering you only brought one pair of black dress pants and one grey button up shirt.

Just as you’re about to go bang on the bathroom door one last time, Eridan steps out wearing something that might be a bit too fancy. He’s wearing a plain white shirt with a purple admiral’s jacket with – oh god. You look away from the leather pants as soon as you register what they are and say, “Don’t you think that might be a little much?”

“What do you mean?” he asks as he straightens his jacket.

“I don’t think it’s that formal, douchebag.”

“Now Kar, there’s no such thing as being overdressed.”

“Sure, whatever the fuck you say.” Before Eridan can run back into the bathroom to change yet again, you grab his wrist and pull him out the door, pretending not to notice the purple blush creeping up his face.

Dave Strider is waiting at in the commons area for you two, and you feel a slight blush rise in your own cheeks. It’s been a little awkward since he suddenly kissed you at the mall about a week ago, and even though you know it’s dumb to start dating at the beginning of freshman year, you keep having to tell yourself to not ask him out.

He looks slightly irritated when he sees you guys, and quickly stuffs his phone back in his pocket before nudging his zoned out roommate. As you walk up to them he says, “Well, at least our dates are finally here. Right, Gamzee?”

You blush, “I’m not your date you insufferable nooksniffer.”

“Of course you’re not, Eridan here is.” He slings an arm over Eridan’s shoulder and your roommate’s face turns the brightest shade of purple you have ever seen.

Eridan stutters out, “Guess that leaves you with Gam, Kar.”

You roll your eyes. “Yeah, sure.”

Gamzee leans towards you and says, “Yo, I ain’t sure if I’m comfortable with this being a motherfucking dating kinda deal, bro. You seem more like a pale motherfucker.”

“Well, that was pretty damn forward,” you indignantly reply before walking outside.

The four of you have some trouble getting into Dave’s car, with all the empty McDonald’s bags and other assorted trash cluttering the floor and seats. However, you manage to get fairly comfortable in the passenger seat. Gamzee and Eridan are sitting in the back, and Eridan keeps trying to start up conversation with Dave.

“So, Dave, is this actually a date?” he asks nervously.

Dave chuckles. “Yep, totally. I am one hundred percent invested in this date going on right here.”

You roll your eyes and turn around before yelling, “OF COURSE IT’S NOT A DATE YOU INSUFFERABLE DOUCHENOZZLE! Dave is messing with you!”

Eridan looks hurt and says, “Well, how would you know?”

Dave smirks and replies, “It’s okay, Eridan, Karkat’s just jealous. It’s okay though, there’s plenty of me to go around.”

As he finishes that line the car stops and you look up at some apartment building. “Where the FUCK are we?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. We’re ditching that dumb mixer.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“We’re at the apartment of a couple of upperclassmen. They’re pretty chill, and I was told their flat is huge. One of them is the heir to some baking company or whatever.”

You open your car door and step outside as you mutter, “Yeah, whatever.”

“Aw, c’mon Kitkat, it’s gonna be a blast.”

Eridan butts in, “Yeah Kar, you’ve got to have an open mind.”

You accept your fate and follow your three “friends” to the door. Once you’re in the vestibule, Dave presses a button labeled “Crocker” and shortly you hear a girl that seems to be pretty drunk say, “Who ish it?”

Dave answers and you are all buzzed in after the girl, who Dave says is named Roxy, tells you it’s the first door on the left on the third floor.

When you reach the door of said apartment you see the person who you are pretty sure must be Roxy from the drink in her hand holding the door open. She looks friendly and smiles at you guys the instant she sees you. You think her purple dress is a bit short, but it does go nicely with her blond hair and strikingly pink eyes.

As soon as she greets your group and closes the door behind you, you find a beer in your hand. You set it down on the first table you see, and proceed to hope that it will not be a common occurrence tonight. It takes you approximately 30 seconds to find John, who is yelling from across the room to you. He has a beer in his hand, and you can tell that it probably isn’t his first once you get over there. His breath smells like alcohol, and he is overly chummy, even for John.

As soon as John is distracted enough by Rose telling some stupid drunken story about how she and Kanaya went to the movies yesterday and made out in the back row for the whole thing, you gently take the beer out of his hand and take it to the kitchen, where you promptly pour it down the drain. You find Gamzee in the kitchen as well, hanging out with some guy with a stitched up mouth as he smokes a cigarette. Unfortunately, he sees you and walks over, meaning that you now have to deal with this stoner and making sure your friends don’t get alcohol poisoning.

“Want a joint?” he asks you.

“Ugh, no. I have too many problems already,” you reply as you sit down in a chair at the snack table.

Gamzee offers you a cup of something instead, and you chug it down before you realize it’s alcohol. You try to spit it out, but it’s too late, and Gamzee just starts laughing at you. He places a hand on your shoulder before saying, “Bro, you gotta motherfucking loosen up. Seriously man, you’re gonna motherfucking die of stress. You could really use a pale relationship with a chill ass motherfucker like myself.”

You sigh. “Maybe you’re right. Classes haven’t even started and I’m already about to break down between everyone being drunk as fuck and Dave teasing me every time I want to tell him how I feel.”

“How do you feel?” you hear a familiar voice say from the doorway.

You look up and see Dave Strider, “Oh no, oh FUCK no,” you say before getting up and storming off to some other part of this giant ass apartment. You don’t even mind when Gamzee follows you and shoves a whole pitcher of alcoholic punch into your hands.

You and Gamzee end up in some spare bedroom, where you are taking swigs of punch between your sobs and his paps. “There, there best bro. Let it all out,” he says softly as you sniff and sob.

“Why is everything so stressful?” you choke out before taking another swig of punch.

He paps you lightly, “It doesn’t have to be, bro. Just tell that human kid how you feel.”

“I don’t know if I should, though. It’s only the beginning of freshman year, it’ll fall apart.”

“Don’t let shit like timing stop you, just do it man.”

“Maybe you’re right,” you say as your eyes grow heavy.


	9. You Done Goofed (Terezi)

==> Be Terezi

This party is great! Well, it is if you can ignore the smell of booze everywhere, you guess. You’re pretty sure that all the humans are wasted, except for maybe Dave, who you don’t think has finished even one drink yet. However, John is almost to the point of blacking out, and is sitting next to you on an overstuffed couch. You think he’s a little annoying, so you try to ignore him as you talk to – ew gross he’s drooling on you.

You shove John onto the floor and he snaps out of whatever stupid, drunken stupor that he had previously been in. He looks around blearily before quickly running down the hall to what you assume is the bathroom. You can smell the barf from here, and it is anything but pleasant. Wrinkling your nose, you barely notice when Jade leaves to go check on him.

You engage in small talk with Kanaya until John and Jade come back, and you notice that Karkat and Gamzee are with them. Gamzee smells like weed and both of them smell like booze. You frown, and worry that Gamzee pressured Karkat into something uncharacteristic.

Your worry seems to be misdirected, however, when you notice how Karkat is acting towards Dave. Dave told you that he thought Karkat was cute when you two were texting the other day, and you wonder how Dave fucked up. You were pretty sure that Karkat liked Dave, so what went wrong?

As you ponder what the problem could be, John stands up and says, “Hey guys! We should totally play truth or dare,” in a slurred voice before grabbing an empty beer bottle off of the table and placing it on the ground between all of you, “I’ll start!”

He spins the bottle and it halts on Sollux, who doesn’t even seem to be paying attention until John yells, “Sollux! Truth or dare, roomie!”

He looks up and glances at the bottle before sighing, “Truth, I gueth.”

John taps his chin for a moment before saying, “What’s your favorite movie?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I don’t really watch movieth.”

“Lame!”

Sollux shakes his head before spinning the bottle himself. It doesn’t spin for long, and lands on Eridan, who turns a bright shade of purple and says, “Dare!” before Sollux can even ask.

“Wear your thwim uniform for clath tomorrow.”

“Wh-what!?”

“You heard me.”

“Fine!” He blushes even more and whips the bottle, scowling when it lands on Vriska.

Vriska makes a quiet scornful sound before saying, “Bring it on. Dare me.”

You can almost see – or, you know, actually smell – the waves of black rolling off of Eridan as he stands up and declares, “Punch yourself in the face.”

“Excuse me?” 

“You heard me.”

“No fucking way.”

“You have to!” John slurs before falling back into the couch.

“This is bullshit.”

Vriska begins to get up, but Eridan says, “C’mon Vris, you chicken or something? The low-bloods will think you’re a cluck-beast,” he spits out the last word as he gestures towards Aradia and Sollux, who is immersed in his phone.

You smell disgust as Vriska’s fist smacks into her face. She grabs the bottle and spins it forcefully. It rotates for a while before finally stopping on you. Your grin widens as you say, “Dare me, spiderbitch.”

Vrika’s grin grows equally in size as she says, “Drink mayonnaise.”

Your face quickly contorts in disgust when you process her words, and you take the jar from Jane after she retrieves it from the kitchen. “How much?” you ask.

“All of it.”

“Ugh.”

You turn the container upside down and begin licking it clean. Fortunately, over half of the jar is already gone, so you don’t have to suffer as much as you thought. You hate having told Vriska that you think mayo smells like rancid white shit, and glower at her to the best of your ability once you finish the jar. It takes you a few moments before your sense of smell returns enough for you to locate and spin the bottle, and when you do, it lands on Dave.

You grin and ignore him when he says, “Dare.”

“Hey coolkid, are you gay?”

“Dude he thaid dare,” says Sollux, who you also ignore.

“Just answer the question, Dave!” garbles John.

You can smell his cherry red eyes widen behind those stupid licorice shades as he laughs a little nervously and says, “Haha, very funny TZ,” he’s taken to calling you this because he thinks it sounds cool, “but you know I’m as straight as the stick up spiderbitch’s ass. So straight, in fact, that you could compare me with muscle dude’s hair.”

Karkat suddenly stands up and says, “BULLSHIT,” before storming out of the room. Dave shakes his head and grabs the bottle, but you don’t notice who it lands on, you’re too busy thinking.

You suppose the game continues as you get up and go sit at one of the dining room chairs, observing Karkat in the kitchen and Dave in the living room. You see now why Karkat seemed to be avoiding Dave, and contemplate whether or not you should just go after that cherry-flavored piece of ass yourself before deciding against it. He’s cute, but you think you’ll lay off until Dave decides whether or not he’ll stop being a meow-beast about everything.


	10. Coolkid (Dave)

==> Be Dave

You are the biggest idiot to have ever walked this good earth. You know it doesn’t matter if you’re bisexual, but it still makes you uncomfortable to admit. Hell, over half of the people you hang out with are trolls, and they don’t even have a concept of sexuality. If only the douches at your homeschool hadn’t been so awful, then maybe this would be easier.

You remember when you first realized you were into dudes. It was after months of catching yourself for checking out random guys in the hallway, which you originally told yourself was completely ironic. But how could it be part of your intentional irony if it was subconscious?

Shit, if only your cool façade was the truth. You really like Karkat, but now you’re pretty sure he hates you. You know Terezi had meant well, but you can’t help but blame her. Sometimes you wish TZ wasn’t so confrontational, but what can you do? It’s not in her nature.

After Karkat’s outburst, no one has been as interested in playing spin the bottle. You aren’t surprised about their lack of interest, but you are surprised when Gamzee leans over to you and says, “You better make things right, motherfucker.”

“Why should I?” you reply to roommate, who’s high as a fucking kite, “Karkat hates me.”

“Because if you can’t make things right, you’re going to have one hell of a time explainin’ it to me.”

You turn and look at Gamzee’s face, and suddenly wish you hadn’t. His eyes have a wild, violent look in them, and he’s grinning like one of the clowns from his creepy posters on your walls. You quickly turn away and stand up, making your way over to the dining room table, where Terezi is in deep thought.

“Which way did he go?” you’d rather get this over with.

“Now, now Dave,” she says your name in a voice that’s a little too sweet, “How would I know? I’m just a blind girl.”

“I don’t have time for this,” you reply as you turn away from the table.

She frowns, upset that you’ve ruined her game, “Kitchen.”

“Thanks.”

 

As you walk away, you can hear Terezi sigh. You know she feels bad, but she’s not very good at apologizing, so you decide to let it drop. It’s kind of amazing how you’ve gotten to know all of your friends so quickly, but you can’t help but feel like you’ve met them before.

Shaking the thought out of your head, you approach Karkat, who is glaring daggers into a bowl of punch in front of him. You reach out to touch his shoulder, but decide against it, figuring that would be a little too friendly. Instead, you say, “Hey man, don’t blame the punch for me being an epic douchebag.”

He jumps a little bit, but doesn’t turn around when he says, “Fuck off, you insufferable nook-sniffer.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I’ve always had problems talking about my feelings, especially the romantic ones.”

“Human sexuality is stupid,” he mumbles before turning around to face you. You can see faintly red tears forming in eyes, and you reach out and hug him.

Karkat stiffens at first, but soon relaxes before gently returning the hug. It’s obvious that he isn’t very fond of physical contact, but neither are you, really. You go to put a hand on his head, but he pulls away before you can, and looks at you.

“So,” he says.

“So?”

“What’s next?”

You grin, “Well, we totally have to get married and buy a big house and have lots of babies,” you say before being interrupted by a snicker from Karkat.

“Fuck no,” he tells you.

“Then what about a date next Friday? Is that more appropriate?”

“Sure, pick me up at 7, I guess.”

“Will do.”

After the conversation with Karkat, you’re in a much better mood, and return to find everyone playing


	11. Creepers Gonna Creep (Nepeta)

==> Be Nepeta

It’s your first day of classes and boy are you excited! Naturally, you’re a zoology major, and your first class of the day is a generic freshman biology course. It might be a bit of a review for you, but it’s a good idea to brush up on your skills, and it’s totally worth it, since Karkat is sitting two rows in front of you, and you have a perfect view of him dozing off. You doubt that he’s interested in biology, since he’s a writing major, but it is a basic freshman course, so it’s not like he has a choice.

You stifle a giggle when his head almost slides out of his hand and he jerks awake. You also wonder if he had a class before this one, since it’s already 11 AM, but you honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t. Karkat has had an unhealthy habit of staying up way too late, though the party you all went to Saturday night does give him an excuse, this time.

You barely notice when class ends just before noon, because you’ve been so focused on copying down the information on the slides of the professor’s power point. You probably should have been listening to her, but you’re not much of an auditory learner. You hurriedly pack up your bag and run out of the classroom, barely catching up with Karkat before he rounds the corner.

“Karkitty!” you squeal as you wrap your arms around his shoulders.

He stiffens slightly before replying, “Hey Nepeta, was that professor fucking boring or what?” He gently removes you from his shoulders.

You giggle a little, “I dunno, I wasn’t really paying much attention to anything other than the powerpoint.”

“Lucky you.”

The conversation fades into an awkward silence after about a minute and you ask, “Have you eaten lunch yet?”

“Nah, that class started at 10. That’s way too early to eat.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” you shrug slightly before continuing, “You want to meet up with some of the others for lunch then?”

“Sure. Why the fuck not.”

“Okay. Race you there!” you yell before taking off once you two exit the building. You and your friends already have a cafeteria you usually eat in, and you’re pretty sure most everyone has lunch around 12, not that it matters. You don’t have class again until 2:00, and you’re probably just going to curl up in one of the armchairs by the old-style fireplace after you finish eating to draw, and any of your friends who ate later would see you.

You beat Karkat by a long shot, mostly because he just jogged lightly instead of sprinting, and declare yourself the winner when he catches up with you. He rolls his eyes and opens the door to the building that houses the cafeteria for you.

Once you and Karkat have gotten your food you quickly spot Terezi and a few others sitting at a table near one of the windows. You know Equius has a class right now, but you’re still disappointed that you don’t see him as you sit down next to Jade, who you bonded with almost instantly after meeting. She asks you about your first class, and then asks about the rest of your schedule for the day. Other people join in, and you’re having a pretty standard conversation until some upperclassman plops down across from you and starts hitting on you and Jade.

“Hey ladies, name’s Cronus,” a tall purple-blooded troll says to you as he runs a hand through his over-greased hair.

You crinkle your nose at the smell of his cologne, and Jade says, “Hi, can we help you?”

“I was just wondering if you lovely ladies would like me to show you around campus,” He winks at you.

Karkat jabs Cronus in his side and yells, “We’ve been on campus for a couple weeks now, douchenozzle, so fuck off.”

Cronus turns to Karkat and looks hurt, “Hey, I didn’t mean to cause a problem,” he gets up and takes a few steps away before turning back and saying, “Y’know, if you’re jealous, all you had to do was say so,” before winking at Karkat and walking back to the table you assume he came from.

Karkat looks disgusted before turning back to his grubloaf and muttering, “Fucking asshole,” under his breath.

You and Jade giggle, but fall silent when Karkat shoots you a glare. You know he’s not actually mad at you, but it’s fun to play along with his little temper tantrums. You turn back to your food, but find it hard to not choke when Terezi says, “Reminds me of Eridan.”


	12. Coolkid? (Jade)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I actually have a buffer now, so updates should be more regular. Enjoy!

==> Be Jade

This has to be the best first day of classes you’ve ever had. You’re sitting at lunch with a bunch of your awesome new friends, and they are hilarious, as always. Your first classes were a bit of a letdown, but that’s okay, not everyone can expect Economics and Spanish 5 to be super interesting. You’d think you’d like continuing Spanish, but your teacher is really boring. You’re pretty sure you fell asleep at least 3 times!

Bad teachers and boring math classes aside, you still really love Skaia University. It wasn’t on the top of your list at first, and your grandpa wanted you to go to an ivy league, but you fell in love with it once you visited. Plus, John was going here, so it was even better to be able to stay at the same school as your little brother. You used to tease him relentlessly about being older, but you’d much rather tease him about you being taller nowadays.

The biggest problem today was probably that Cronus guy, but he went away without too much trouble, so this day still has a ton of potential. You’re really excited about your art class this afternoon, especially since it’s with Dave. He’s so cooooool.

You’re so deep in your own thoughts that you don’t even notice Karkat practically yelling your name. You look up, slightly confused, and ask, “What?”

“Oh my fucking god, were you listening at all?” he sighs, exasperated, and continues talking before you can answer him, “Nepeta was saying that we should go outside, and we asked your opinion, but your head was too far up your nook to hear, apparently.”

You stand up and say that of course you should all go outside, you have to enjoy the warm weather while it’s still here! You haven’t been in a climate where there’s much change between seasons since you were little, but you still know it’s going to start getting cold soon enough.

Nepeta is delighted that you agree with her, and Karkat looks suitably annoyed. You all know he prefers not going outside, but the fresh air is good for him, and Terezi did threaten to lick him if he ditched you guys. Speaking of Terezi, you don’t see her walking with you three, and glance around a little worriedly. What if all of the smells in here confused her? You quickly spot her however, when you hear a loud exclamation of disgust, and see her licking that guy Cronus’ food. He looks positively grossed out, and Terezi just cackles as she makes her way back over to your group. There’s some troll that looks kinda like Karkat in a red sweater yelling after her, but she’s ignoring him.

Terezi gives Nepeta a high five as you guys leave the cafeteria, and pouts when Karkat refuses to. He ends up giving in and laughing about the whole affair, but you can’t help but wince when you hear how raspy his laugh is from al that yelling.

It’s a gorgeous day when you get outside, and you all settle down in the shade of an oak tree by a statue of the University’s founder. You doubt that any of the statues are very accurate, however, as they all portray a featureless man in a suit called Doc Scratch. Nobody else has mentioned the strange statues, however, so you’ve elected to not bring it up. It’s probably not important since the guy must have died a long time ago.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but you obviously did when you see Nepeta above you, shaking you awake. She says that it’s 1:30, and she didn’t know if you had a 2 o’clock class or not. You tell her that you do and thank her for waking you up. Your narcolepsy really is a problem sometimes, but at least there was someone that could wake you up to prevent you from missing one of your classes this time.

You make sure your bag is packed up before waving goodbye to your friends. You know it won’t take you 30 minutes to get to class, but you want to make sure you have enough time to find the classroom first.

It ends up taking you almost all of the 30 minutes you had to find your classroom, and a lot of the seats in the cramped studio are already taken. You spot Dave in the back, and he give you a small wave, motioning to the seat next to him.

You make your way across the room, almost tripping on a box of old paints before you get to the seat, but still reaching it intact. You smile at Dave and take out your sketch book, just in case you actually get to draw today. Dave raises an eyebrow at you and you say, “C’mon Dave, it’s an art class, I should probably bring my sketchbook.”

“Well, duh,” he replies, “What else are you going to sketch all those naked subjects on, notebook paper? It just wouldn’t do ‘em justice.”

You giggle and shove him playfully before opening your book to a random page. It’s a sketch of Bec you did before leaving for college, and Dave looks over your shoulder curiously. You cover the sketch, embarrassed, and say, “I’m not very good.”

Dave lets out a small snort and starts rambling on about how you’re selling yourself short before he’s cut off by the teacher, who glares at him before starting a lecture on different uses of color. You’re pretty sure he rolls his eyes behind his glasses, but it’s hard to tell.

The rest of class is pretty boring, you talk about the syllabus, and more about color applications. The best part so far is how you and Dave are trading little cartoons of the teacher in your sketchbook. You think that Dave’s style is pretty unique, but you think it’s in a good way. You can tell he’s trying to make the drawings look shitty, but he’s doing it with a precision that betrays his external nonchalance.


	13. New place, old faces (Kanaya)

==> Be Kanaya

It’s the end of your first week of classes, and it’s obvious that your roommate really enjoyed it by how she’s rambling on about goofing off with Dave in their graphic design class, as she has almost every day this week. Once she’s finished gushing, you talk about your week as well. It wasn’t exactly perfect, but it was rather enjoyable. The only real problem was a girl in your history class who obviously had a problem with trolls, but your professor managed to shut her up without too much commotion.

You knew that some humans were displeased with how your two species now shared the planet, and you couldn’t honestly say you blamed her. You think that the choice between genocide and “symbiosis” that the Condesce gave the humans was rather unfair, but you weren’t a fuchsia blood, so it wasn’t your call. The fact that Alternia had been destroyed was rather unfortunate, but you didn’t think that you needed to threaten mankind into helping your displaced race. They seemed like a rather compassionate species, not nearly as violent as your own.

It was also rather surprising that the Condesce didn’t just wipe out the human race in order to take over the earth, but they were apparently very resilient, and she wanted to keep the planet intact. A planet as lush as Earth was hard to come by, and it was obvious that Her Imperial Condescension wanted to resettle her species on a planet likely to last, even if it did have a rather extreme amount of pollution to clean up.

You’re very happy that your new human friends aren’t biased against your species, but you wouldn’t expect anything less from humans that your troll friends associated with. You were also very happy to have met Rose, who you had been dating since almost the start of orientation. Everyone who knew you used to have a flush crush on Vriska thought you would never get over her, but you were very glad to have proven them wrong.

Speaking of Vriska, she was also unfortunately in your history class, and had elected that sitting next to you and Tavros was the best possible idea. You wouldn’t have minded sitting next to Vriska or Tavros, but sitting next to both of them brought up very bad memories. They had obviously never talked about their former flushed feelings for each other, and it was just a disastrous mess to listen to Vriska rag on Tavros for hours while he didn’t have the confidence to stop her.

Just thinking about how you awful it had been when you found out about Vriska’s feelings for Tavros made you feel a little sick, and it was hard to not think about your dearly departed lusus comforting you through that troubling stage of your adolescence.

You shake off the old feelings of regret for never having told Vriska about your crush on her before asking Jade if she would mind you taking her measurements for something you were working on. You wanted the dress you were designing for her to be a surprise, but you couldn’t make something that fit properly without correct measurements, and you refused to just guess.

She seemed curious about your project, but stopped asking questions when you told her it was a surprise. You weren’t telling anyone about the formal outfits you were making for them, as per Feferi’s request. She had told you that she wanted everyone to be properly outfitted for the “Christmas party” she had decided to throw for this year, and that their outfits, and hers, should be a surprise. The only one who knew what they would be wearing was you, and you hadn’t even decided on a style or color yet. You were glad that Feferi had asked you to make the clothes in advance, but it didn’t mean that 4 months was exactly an appropriate period of time in which to finish 16 outfits, especially on top of schoolwork.

After you finished measuring Jade, she asked if you wanted to come to dinner with her and everyone else. You were tempted, but declined in order to finish your outfit sketches, since you only had a few more to complete. You weren’t sure what you were going to make for Karkat, since no one other than Terezi knew his blood color, and she refused to tell, saying it was something too personal for her to just tell everyone.

You were wondering if Karkat would tell you his blood color if you asked nicely when there was a loud knock on your door. You closed your sketchbook before walking over to the door and opening it, seeing a distressed and very angry looking Karkat standing in front of you.


	14. Bard of Rage (Karkat)

==> Be Karkat

You shove past Kanaya and plop down on her neatly made bed. You rest your head in one hand and exclaim, “Well I just had the worst fucking day of my entire life! And the troll who is probably my moirail is too stoned out of his mind to listen.”

Kanaya sits down gracefully next to you and hesitantly rests a hand on your back, “Would you care to elaborate?”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

She wraps her arm around your shoulders and says, “I assume the reason you came here was to tell me.”

“Fuck, you’re right,” you unconsciously lean into her and she pats your shoulder encouragingly.

You let out a loud sigh before spitting it out, “I fucking walked in on Eridan and Sollux after I got back from class.”

“Oh,” Kanaya’s face rapidly begins turning a vibrant shade of green before she asks, “I assume you walked in on them…”

“Thank fuck, no,” you look at Kanaya with disgust and say, “But their make-outs were getting pretty damn close.”

“That sounds… Rather unpleasant.”

“Believe me, it was. I don’t ever want to see Sollux shirtless again.”

Kanaya laughs lightly and you glare at her, making her fall silent before she quickly pulls away.

“Why the fuck did you move?”

Her face turns even greener, “You have a moirail, I don’t want to come between you two.”

“Screw Gamzee,” you shout as you lean against Kanaya’s shoulder, “His head is too far up his nook for him to notice when I need him, he’d be an awful moirail.”

“If you say so…” Kanaya starts before her door opens and Jade walks in.

Dave and Rose are following Jade, and Dave raises an eyebrow when he sees you. Jade stops talking when she sees you and exclaims, “Karkat! What are you doing here?”

“None of your fucking business, Harley,” you answer after jerking away from Kanaya.

“You don’t have to be rude, grumpypants! What were you doing in here with Kanaya?”

Kanaya’s face, which had just returned to a normal color, starts to show a pale dusting of green as she says, “Karkat just needed to talk to someone about some… Issues he was having.”

“I see,” Rose says as she looks you straight in the eyes, “Well, we were going to invite you to come watch a movie with us Kanaya, but if Karkat needs your help…”

You open your mouth to make a sharp retort, but Kanaya cuts you off, “I would love to watch a movie, but could I talk to you for a moment, Rose?”

“Of course. We’ll meet you three downstairs, assuming that Karkat wants to join us.”

You’d rather be anywhere but your room right now, so you quickly agree to go with Dave and Jade. You glance back at Rose and Kanaya, who are having a hushed conversation, before the door closes behind you. 

Jade and Dave try to ask you what’s wrong a few times, but stop after you repeatedly tell them to fuck off. Dave rests his hand on your shoulder for a moment and shoots you a worried glance, but walks ahead of you to proceed down the stairs with Jade after you tense up and give him a glare.

Terezi, Nepeta, Equius, Feferi, John, and Tavros are already waiting for you when you get downstairs. Feferi asks if you know where Eridan is, and you snap at her that you don’t have any fucking clue. You feel bad when she looks more than a little hurt, and start to apologize before a very disheveled Sollux walks into the room. 

John snickers when he sees his roommate and says, “Your shirt’s on backwards.”

Sollux scowls and pulls his arms into his shirt, turning it around.

Jade giggles and says, “Did you finally hit it off with Aradia?”

Terezi steps closer to Sollux and snorts, as if what she smelled offended her. “I don’t think it was Aradia, Jade,” she says before sitting next to Nepeta on the couch.

John and Jade look more than a little confused and get the hint that they probably don’t want to know why Sollux looks so unkempt, judging from Terezi’s reaction, and sit down on the floor in front of the TV. The DVD menu is for some action film you’ve never seen, and you sit down on one end of the couch, away from everyone else. You regret this decision a little, however, when Kanaya and Rose sit down next to you.

Rose gives you a small smile before taking Kanaya’s hand and telling Dave to start the movie. Kanaya notices Sollux almost immediately, and pats you on the shoulder gently. Nepeta seems to notice, and looks more than a little confused, but doesn’t bring it up as she leans into Equius, who is mumbling something into her ear while she nods understandingly.

You all get about halfway through the movie, with random other members of your social circle popping in, until Gamzee shows up. He looks abnormally lucid, and quickly spots you sitting next to Kanaya, her hand still on your shoulder. You don’t even have time to notice that he’s present before he grabs your shoulder and starts asking you what the fuck is going on.

You start to tell him that he’s acting crazy as he shakes you, but you can’t before Nepeta comes to your rescue. She tells him to leave you alone, it’s not your fault you had to find someone else to talk to with him being high as a kite all the fucking time. He quickly forgets he was interrogating you and focuses on Nepeta. She puffs up her chest, but is visibly nervous as the taller troll stares her down.

Gamzee doesn’t hesitate before jumping Nepeta, and knocks her out with barely any effort. Equius jumped off the couch as soon as he saw Gamzee turn to Nepeta, and is now shakily trying to tell him to leave everyone alone. He’s always been an extreme hemoist, and it doesn’t seem as if a highblood hurting his moirail makes that any different. Gamzee just laughs in his face and grabs him by the neck, but doesn’t do much damage before Terezi and Kanaya simultaneously stand up and tackle him.

Kanaya acts faster than Terezi however, and knocks the rampaging juggalo off balance before Terezi can reach him. Terezi takes the opportunity to switch tactics, and brings her cane down swiftly so that it hits his head. Gamzee looks momentarily confused before he turns to face Kanaya, forgetting the coughing blue blood at his feet.

He starts screaming insults at Kanaya that you didn’t even know he knew, and she whips out her lipstick. You know that all trolls have a weapon with them at all times, and you’re scared to find out what Kanaya’s lipstick actually is. You scream for them to stop when Kanaya’s lipstick turns into a chainsaw, and she looks back at you momentarily. Gamzee takes this moment of weakness to grab the chainsaw and stick it through Kanaya’s middle, leaving her body to slump to the ground when he pulls it out.

You don’t even notice the hot, red tears coming from your eyes as you take out your sickles. Nor do you notice Dave holding you back as Vriska arrives and aids Terezi in subduing the clown. You don’t even register the human authorities trying to pull you away from Kanaya’s lifeless body. You just hiss and slash at them with your claws, convincing them to leave you alone, stained in jade blood as you beg Kanaya to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I still have one more buffer chapter, but I need to edit it, so I might be a little late next time. Anyways, thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> This work will probably update monthly, it might be earlier or later sometimes depending on how much work I have though. Let me know if you have any questions. =D


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